WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Paramount got off the mat with the release of Transformers: Age of Extinction, pushing the studio over $1.0 billion worldwide for the year to date and into 5th place and now above Universal.  Disney ($1.66 billion worldwide for 2014 to date) moved slightly above Sony ($1.65 billion) thanks to continued overseas grosses […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, weekend #26 of 2014 now looks like $171 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, very close to yesterday’s estimate ($172 million) and 10% below the norm for this weekend and 6% below the same weekend last year as the lackluster summer 2014 rolls on.   Opening at 4,233 […]

  The odds are strong that on Sunday morning, TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION (Paramount) will claim a $100M weekend, the first of 2014–but we won’t really know until Monday whether the movie has hit that mark.  According to reports at Deadline and elsewhere, Transformers 4 fell sharply on Saturday from its $41.6M opening day, in the […]

  RECKLESS:  Sunday 9PM on CBS – If Nothing Else Is On… In the Charleston of CBS’s summer potboiler RECKLESS, it seems like just about everyone is sleeping with everyone else, or wants to.  That absurdly overheated quality is the most likable thing about what’s otherwise a fairly conventional legal procedural, which comes from a […]

  On Friday, the big alien robots blew things up. OPENINGS:  TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION (Paramount) got the Friday it was hoping for, the biggest day of 2014 at $41.6M, and one that gives the blockbuster a strong (although not certain) chance to hit the magic $100M mark on Sunday.  In addition, Transformers 4 earned $52M […]

  NETWORK UPDATE:  Both WHAT WOULD YOU DO? and 20/20 climbed by 0.1.  There was no good news for CROSSBONES. FRIDAY CABLE:  It was a happy night for The Disney Channel, which premiered GIRL MEETS WORLD to a strong 1.3 rating, the highest cable number of the night (and almost the highest on network or […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, weekend #26 of 2014 looks like $172 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, 9% below the norm for this weekend and 6% below the same weekend last year as the lackluster summer 2014 rolls on.   Opening at 4,233 theaters, Transformers: Age of Extinction from Paramount grossed $41.1 million through Friday […]

  Despite a $8.7M start on Thursday night that was no better than the year’s other blockbusters, and bulletins throughout the day that business was slightly softer than expected, reports at Deadline and elsewhere are now claiming that TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION (Paramount) surged to $40M on Friday, which would be the biggest day of any […]